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Haunting Weather	By : Akaitsuru Category: +S to Z > Shaman King Views: 2646 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King or any of the characters. I did not make any money from writing this story. Rest assured, if I DID own SK, Yoh and I would be best friends, and Amidamaru would be following us around on a leash.

Chapter List
- 1-Haunting Weather
- 1
Author's notes: I wrote the adult scene in this as a challenge for myself, as I hadn't ever done one before. It was really, really hard! (No double-entendre intended, but take it that way if you must.) Honestly it came out kinda long, and probably not graphic *enough* by adult-fanfiction.org standards. Oh well. The plot elements of the story stand on their own as part of a fic cycle, "Chrysanthemums and Ashes," the rest of which can be read at http://www.fanfiction.net/~Akaitsuru

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Reincarnation 10.2: Haunting Weather

By Akaitsuru RedCrane

It was an early summer storm of rare power. Rain raked over Funbari, long silver sheets of water shearing at the foliage that had begun to emerge from the cherry trees. It hammered hard against blue-tiled roofs, cascaded down drainpipes and flooded into the streets. Streams burgeoned in the canals, their rushing white noise adding to the din of thunder; lightning provided the only light visible in the suburb, bolts darting to paint the edges of everything in brilliant white. The electricity was out, and the night was darkly overcast, starless.

The Inn of Flames was illuminated by tattered lanterns rescued from storage, which gave its antique wood and soft tatami floors a decrepit air. The candles within the paper lamps flickered at every gust of wind, touched by the drafts of the historic building. Despite the flames’ faint efforts, the shadows were terrifyingly deep in places, and every once in a while there was a hint of strange, shuddering movement that shouldn’t have been visible in the gloom... maybe even a half-imagined glimpse of evil eyes, glaring down between the ceiling rafters. A faint creaking sound resounded through empty hallways, like slow footsteps, or labored moans coming up from underneath the floor...

Yoh Asakura yawned and rolled over, the candle flames reflected in his eyes as he struggled to stay awake. Even with the rain outside, his den was pleasantly warm, almost stuffy; he was lounging on the tatami floor, wearing nothing but a hotel robe and a bandage around his shoulder. The disturbing noises in the corridor grew, scraping and groaning gradually beginning to eclipse the rumbles of thunder outside, but Yoh didn’t seem to notice. He smiled, lashes fluttering closed, oblivious to the dark, mumbling shapes slithering around the corners of his living room.

Just as a shadow that looked suspiciously like a claw-tipped hand started to creep across the rush matting toward the boy, a sliver of brightness flashed down and casually skewered it. The malevolent fingers evaporated instantly, curling away like dust around the point of the sword; the walls’ creaking shrieks faded as a broad-shouldered figure stepped out of nowhere, coming to kneel by the teenager's side. The glow surrounding this shape chased away darkness, dispelling it as simply and easily as the moon gliding from behind a cloud.

((Yoh-dono? Do you not think it is time for bed?))

“Hm?” The shaman did not move, rumpled gown twisted around him. There was a manga propped open on his chest. “Mm... reading my book...”

((But will not Lady Anna's training on the morrow...))

“She promised to let me off the hook in the morning, since my shoulder wasn't looking so great today.” Finally sitting up a little, Yoh managed a tousled, hazy grin upwards. “Here, calm down and come read ‘Hakaba Kitaro’ with me, Amidamaru.”

The glowing figure’s sharp, thin face softened for a moment, fierce eyes going completely, achingly gentle. He sat down and folded his legs underneath him, spine stiff in rigid formal posture. His gaze watched Yoh as though seeking for his approval. The boy chuckled, flopping back down and repositioning himself with his head on his companion’s knees. When the teenager settled, the pale silhouette relaxed and sighed a little, a gesture that implied practice rather than actual breath: even after six hundred years as a spirit, the habits of the flesh died hard.

On the pages of Yoh’s book, yuurei - illustrated yuurei - wheeled and chased one another. Amidamaru tried to enjoy the adventures of the monster child so neatly detailed across the panels (in the feudal warrior’s opinion, manga was one of the greatest inventions of the last six centuries) but despite his master’s best efforts the comic kept drooping lower and lower. By the time the volume slipped out of the boy’s hands, a soft snore could be heard mixing with the patter of rain outside.

Distraction of puzzling out modern Japanese gone, the ghost shifted, abruptly and excruciatingly aware of how the shaman fit against his legs. The soft weight of Yoh’s head pillowed on his thighs was bad enough, but from this vantage point, the rumpled condition of the boy’s yukata exposed a long V of skin almost all the way down to his hip. The edges of the teenager’s collarbone, the white-wrapped arc of his ribs, even the subtle pulse beating in his neck were thrown into alluring relief by lantern light. Amidamaru sensed buried thoughts struggling to unearth themselves and chastised himself quietly: he had known it was a poor idea to sit so close in the first place, but Yoh's friendly invitation had simply been too much to refuse...

The wind keened around the eaves and set the lantern fires to wilder dancing. Golden shadows played over the shaman’s face in fleeting patterns. Amidamaru stared at the scene for what felt like a long time, almost appearing to gather his strength. Finally, with extreme delicacy, he slipped his hands beneath Yoh’s shoulders, meaning to lift the boy and make his silent escape. The young warrior's ghostly fingers, however, apparently misjudged their aim. Instead of coming to rest as intended, they shifted right through the cotton and slid down the boy’s smooth back - for all the world like a longed-for caress.

Amidamaru flinched, the sensation of contact with downy skin as shocking as grabbing a hot stove would be for a living person. Ghosts existed on a plane which overlapped with the physical universe only at key points, like the body of a shaman: the shade knew all too well that reconnecting to physical reality was an experience so stimulating for a spirit, it could border on the dangerously intoxicating. Death's loneliness was a terrible burden for even the most sanctified of souls, and certainly the samurai's spirit was not immune to its effects. Loyalty, virtue, detachment - he might have meditated on these things at great length since his final battle, but in the end his heart was still weak and human.

Six centuries of isolation, up on that hill, Amidamaru remembered, that weary eternity like a crushing weight in his memories. Six centuries waiting for the one I loved, who never came...

The guardian's poorly buried thoughts clawed closer to the surface when he glanced down at the boy who had appeared in his friend's stead. Even now, he was waiting, it seemed. Waiting, unsure if the person he was waiting for had already forgotten him.

((My lord...))

The ghost's soft words were almost a plea, a feeble wish for Yoh to wake. But although the teenager's lashes fluttered, he did not stir, and the spirit did not attempt to speak again. The tips of his fingers were still touching the boy: Amidamaru’s hands seemed to resonate at every point of contact, burning and freezing by turns. Slowly, so slowly he managed to start pulling them back... until at the last moment, his palm brushed the sensitive curve of Yoh's neck, and made his master let out a tiny, sleepy noise of pleasure.

"...Ahn..."

A forked lash of lighting whipped down and struck somewhere nearby, bathing everything in eerie brilliance. The flare shone straight through Amidamaru’s ghostly silhouette - blinding, seeming to erase his already tenuous presence from existence for the space of a heartbeat. The hollow crack of thunder that followed made Yoh twitch; the ghost's resolutions crumbled, and he cupped the back of the shaman's head again, smoothing the silky hair there until his master quieted.

I just... cannot bear this, Yoh-dono. Amidamaru's soul writhed in a sort of agony, finally forced to acknowledge those thoughts he longed to keep suppressed. The dimming shine of his outline rippled like a fire without enough air. Ever since I learned the touch of your lips, I simply... cannot... bear this...

The ghost's eyes darted unconsciously in the direction of Anna's room before returning to his master's face. Something benighted twisted in the center of Amidamaru's being, the terrible, subtle ache of guilty anticipation starting to throb in his chest. Before he could allow himself to hesitate, Amidamaru leaned low over his master’s slender form, listening to the sound of Yoh’s breathing against the roar of storm outside. Their foreheads brushed and then touched, Amidamaru’s face nestled into the tangle of Yoh’s hair.

((I am... sorry,)) the guardian whispered. ((I know. That night, I swore it would be the last time. But I am going to do it again after all...))

The candles lighting the scene fizzled sharply, writhing in strangely burnt colors. The house groaned again in a distressingly heartfelt keen. And then the flames went out all at once, as though extinguished by an unseen hand.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You all know what to do, don’cha?”

A crowd of small faces nodded, beaming with eagerness even under their habitual coats of dirt and bruises.

“You’re gonna be quick and quiet and pay attention, enjoyin’ the fair but keeping your eyes open for danger, aren’tcha?”

Solemn grins at this, a touch of obvious fear mixed with barely contained excitement.

“You all know what to say if you get caught, don’tcha?”

Back to the nods, even more vigorous this time, impatient.

“‘Oh please mista, please, I waz only playin,’” one little girl piped up by way of demonstration, her face scrunching up in a very convincing parody of tears. “That’s wut we says, isn’t it?”

“Very good.” A hand reached out and patted her dusty head. “Last question, everyone! What do you ya do if all else fails?”

“Run! Start yellin! Start yellin for Amidamaru!”

The tribe of orphans screeched their habitual backup plan in joyful unison and then scattered like sparrows, too eager to wait through any more cautions. Mosuke straightened up from where he had been crouched in the mob’s midst, a smile playing about his own face as they took off in all directions. The blacksmith’s son, sinewy and muscular despite years of rough living and poor food, turned to the only other figure left by the roadside and nodded. His companion was much taller, seemingly older than himself, but the youth did not appear aware of this at all - he came over and grabbed Amidamaru’s hand as though it belonged to him, tugging him eagerly towards the lights and music the other children had disappeared into.

“C'mon, the others are going to get all the loot if we don’t hurry!”

Amidamaru started to follow but then hesitated, a secret, sad gaze falling on the back of his friend’s head. Mosuke stopped pulling his arm and glanced behind, still grinning, an impish look in his eyes. Bringing his partner’s hand to his mouth he kissed it, sweetly, but with a hint of mild mockery too. The blacksmith's lips were warm and solid, the feeling as true as if neither of them had ever died: it made Amidamaru shudder, skin tingling with the return of long-lost sensitivity.

“Don’t go all noble on me now, you know I won’t make you steal anything yourself.” Yanking on Amidamaru’s wrist Mosuke pulled him close, reaching up to smooth the pale hair. His face turned serious, teenaged features taking on a look that would evolve into a truly smoldering stare when he was a bit older. “Don’t worry. Everyone else will be dead asleep tonight, ya know. We’ll finally have the chance to do something... nice...”

No. We will not. This is only a dream, a memory.

Terrible nostalgia pierced Amidamaru’s heart, looking at his first love’s sincerity through adult eyes. He responded as he would have in the past, though, and dipped his head shyly - Mosuke chuckled and kissed his forehead, turning again to the festival that had brought them here. Taiko were beginning to play, resounding drums ringing out from somewhere unseen. More people were arriving, walking down the path in front the pair; the strangers were blurry illusions, shadows half-recalled from years of visiting this fair as a child.

If I wished to, perhaps I could live it all over again. Amidamaru lifted his gaze to the shrine's red torii gate, followed its sweeping curve as though searching for an answer hanging there. Perhaps I could go down this road a mile or two and I would come to our temple, with the pans on the floor to catch the rain leaks and the blankets we shared before the Buddha’s blessed statue. They were walking now, the former samurai's hand firmly held in Mosuke’s. ...But that is not why I came. This past of mine is an illusionary shroud, draped across power that does not belong to me. There is only one thing here that is real...

He had to remind himself of that over and over again when the remembrance of Mosuke’s fingers twined around his felt so solid. Seeing this ancient reflection of his friend made his heart even heavier than it already felt... but he had long since come to terms with the fact that their relationship belonged to a life six hundred years dead and gone. Even Mosuke - the real Mosuke, his spirit - had agreed the last time their ghosts had spoken, usual rough-edged realism hiding his regret.

((I see how you watch that kid. I used to watch you that way.))

The adolescent vision of his friend paused, skillfully prying a wallet loose from some distracted matsuri patron. All around them, Amidamaru knew the other orphans were doing the same - back then, this autumn gathering had provided their livelihood for most of winter. At the end of the night, Amidamaru and Mosuke had always counted everything up and gleefully made plans about what groceries they would buy until their garden started to grow again in the spring. Small wonder that this important event always wound up as the staging point for the swordsman's dream-walkings...

Mosuke danced back from the man in the ski jacket whose pocket he had been picking. Some of the crowd were now obviously wearing modern garb instead of Muromachi dress, and Amidamaru realized that this was a point where he could move closer to his goal. When Mosuke turned away, searching for another target, Amidamaru took a deep breath and stepped sideways into the press of people. It broke him a little every time he did this, sharp shards of grief grinding together under his ribcage, but once his former lover was out of sight the tightness in his throat began to ease. A little.

He quickly began to walk toward the main hall of the shrine. The vendor booths passed by in a blur, a strange mixture of new and old technology on display: the candy seller’s pavilion and the taiyaki man’s griddle were powered with electricity, but directly between them a girl grilled sparrows over hot coals, her motions lit by torches. The shrine's Noh stage, roof hung with hundreds of paper lanterns, loomed large in Amidamaru’s vision. This structure was sharply defined, radiant against the backdrop of the setting sun, and he made it his goal.

The taikos' booming voices continued to sing out, but he was leaving the crowd in his wake and advancing alone. He noticed that the air around him was growing colder... colder... and colder, colder still, the chill increasing with every step he took toward the peaked roof of the main shrine. A few lengths from the edge of the stage and it was already far too frigid for mid-October, the harvest days of the festival from his own memory. Something crackled under his feet, and when he looked down he saw it was ice: a thin layer of snow that rapidly deepened and stretched out beyond where he stood.

The white blanket coated the trees rising around the shrine's main building, too. It was a forest of titanic pines, completely different from the maples he'd left only a few strides behind him. The land just ahead was far wilder and steeper than the open fields from Amidamaru's childhood; it was as though with the act of crossing the square, he had instead crossed the entire country and was now standing at the edge of the frigid North. The samurai was walking into the heart of someone else's winter night, even with the autumn sun of his own village shining cheerfully on his back.

He is very close, today. Another disconcerting flutter of anticipation, and the familiar gnawing of remorse sharpened. The spirit knew he was about to leave his own dream behind now. ...This is my last chance to stop this...

The wind gusted, unfurling in his face, bringing with it faint smells that were sharp to his reincarnated senses: damp tatami, fresh mud, and lightning. An image crossed his mind, of candle flames and shadows flickering on young skin. Amidamaru realized he was moving again, pushing forward. The winter closed around him completely, like a fist, and he was sure if he glanced over his shoulder now there would be nothing he recognized - no trace of his own simple past, besides the taiko continuing to throb. Only a mountain trail and more of the primeval trees, gathering in clots of evening darkness with their tangled branches. Realizing this, he tried his best not to look back.

The notes of a shakuhachi flute shimmered into hearing, dipping low and then flying upward into a scintillating trill. Amidamaru stopped, looked up, already anticipating what he would see. From behind the bobbing lanterns adorning the stage emerged a silhouette, shining in pure white robes, more luminous than even the huge electric floodlights spilling glare at his feet. The figure’s only ornament was a golden hairpin wrought in the shape of a chrysanthemum, gleaming where it nestled in untamable brown hair. Even Yoh's skin seemed to be glowing, as he raised his arms and began to dance.

The paces were slow and stately at first, regimented in perfect time to the slow beat of the music and the faintest suggestion of chimes. The grave, ancient music appeared to control that lithe body, so flawless was the synchronization between rhythm and stance. The boy glided across the ringing platform in measured steps, long sleeves billowing; smooth sweeps of his hands and flicks of the wrist made the hanging fabric bell further, first shrouding, then revealing his form with artful delicacy.

Little by little, anarchy infiltrated the pattern Yoh walked, enlivening it, loosening it. The folds of his costume began to waft around him like mist, whirling and rising as though he were being romanced by a solemn breeze. When the flute’s tempo began to pick up speed, the dancer followed suit, bending and twisting wildly - the last traces of stiffness and rigidity gone, transparent silk fluttering around his limbs, the shaman's figure seemed about to transcend his human flesh and become something else entirely.

If I were still one of them, I know I would see all the spirits of this mountain gathered around him now, enraptured. A kind of transcendent sorrow wrung Amidamaru as he watched. Perhaps... being a ghost is...

Yoh twirled one last time, rising up on his toes and then actually leaping to levitate a few inches above the makeshift stage. The ceremonial song came to a sharp peak, woodwind melody shrieking and then tattering away to nothing with the invisible player's fading breath. The stage lanterns ignited with the of dull green of foxfire, sparks snapping off and shattering into thousands of tiny hitodama - the floodlights burst in gouts of glittering glass. Amidamaru realized his shaman was staring at him with wide, transfixed eyes: their gazes locked together, drawing the warrior in. Like lighting, being called to earth.

Yoh wavered and finally fell, the magic suspending him dissipating into the alpine air. With the strange ease of dreams Amidamaru found himself at his master's side, holding the boy's hands, bowing before him where he had partially collapsed on the stage. A few stray spirit flares drifted around their legs, strobing dully, casting firefly shadows on both pale faces.

“Let's get away from here,” Yoh whispered. Minute red stains were beginning to smudge the white of his robes, flowering from a scattering of glass cuts on his arms and legs. Amidamaru gasped faintly at this but the shaman only smiled, reaching to be picked up by his guardian - walking was out of the question in his bare feet. A damp feeling slid across the samurai's face as Yoh wrapped his arms around Amidamaru's neck: a smear of the shaman's blood, marking his cheek. The thought threatened to make guardian stumble as he picked his way to the stairs leading down from the stage.

“Are you cold, my lord?”

The sound of his own voice, not a ghostly echo but true words bred of air and flesh, was almost as thrilling for Amidamaru as Yoh's tantalizing proximity to him. They were sitting on a mound of pine needles, beneath a sheltering group of trees some distance from the honden. The samurai had followed a little path into the forest by instinct and it had lead them here: a tranquil grove, almost free of ice, heavy evergreen boughs mostly hiding the stone altar of a tiny Inari shrine.

Despite the forgotten air of the place, some devoted follower of the rice kami had still lit a pair of small torches near this set of torii gates. They gave just enough light to see by - and added supernatural life to the faces of the fox sculptures holding vigil for their god. Amidamaru looked at the statues as he asked his master the question, and did not flinch when he thought he saw the vulpine faces grin back at him. Although this quiet intimacy with his partner was ultimately what he had sought, he had become too nervous to even glance at the boy by his side.

“I'm fine. I don't feel it at all any more, actually. That's kind of odd, isn't it.” There was a rustle as Yoh moved. “Look, the snow doesn't even melt when I hold it. How funny!”

The young guardian couldn't avoid turning to glance as requested. Yoh was on his knees, holding a handful of powdery crystals in his cupped palms. Bending close to try and decipher the mystery, he looked like a curious child caught in a moment of simplicity. The glimmer of the chrysanthemum pin above his ear shot splinters of reflected gold off into the trees. Despite an aching moment of self-reproach, Amidamaru found he could not turn his eyes back to the empty dusk, and subtly shifted to face his shaman.

I should not have come this far if I did not intend to go through with this.

“Perhaps it is the power of your rite, still acting upon you,” the swordsman demurred, trying to give a logical answer to Yoh's inquisitiveness. It often happened that the teenager woke himself up by realizing the strangeness of what he was dreaming - out of all the outcomes Amidamaru had charted in this world, that was the one that happened the most, and it was the hardest to avoid.

“It could be. I haven't danced the Asakuras' kagura for a long time, not since I was little.” There was a wistful note in Yoh's voice that quickly turned to relief as he dusted the snow away and sat back again. Stretching, he grinned up at the warrior with his back against a tree trunk. “It feels good to relax after all that! I kinda forgot how intense it can get.”

“I did not even know you could dance that way, for my part.” Through his boiling emotions, a sudden smile broke through and etched itself on Amidamaru's lean face: if nothing else, he would be able to hold the image of Yoh dancing in his heart forever. “It was... most impressive, my lord.”

“Thanks. My mother taught me. She said maybe some day I could catch myself a guardian spirit with its summoning power.” The young shaman chuckled, but his eyes were suddenly quizzical, as though something intriguing had just occurred to him. He glanced up and their gazes fused again, drawn together just as they had for that instant during the dance. “I thought she was trying to make a joke or something. It never worked... until tonight.”

The ghost put one hand on the bark beside Yoh's head and leaned in, slowly. The boy did not move, but there was no sign of rejection in his stare: only a hint of questioning, a vacillation between hesitation and hope. It was so obvious and sweet that most of the spirit's reservations were abruptly submerged by a flood of tenderness. He bridged the final space between them and brought their lips together in a rush, gently pinning his master to the tree. A soft noise escaped Yoh's throat, but he reached up to bring the guardian closer. Slender hands clasped Amidamaru's forearms and tugged him near enough that their knees brushed, that their body heat mingled. Their flickering shadows eclipsed one another.

He is so lovely. The kind of uncontainable emotion that would have made him burst forth with radiance as a ghost now simply expressed itself as a sweet, physical ache. So... innocent... even after everything we have shared in this place... each motion, each reaction is like the first, over and over again. I truly believe he remembers none of it, not even as a nightmare.

That sudden thought - the unendurable bitterness of being forgotten, forsaken every morning when his love awoke - manifested itself in the dream as a blast of piercing wind knifing through the pines. True winter closed in with it, reemerging as frigid as his regret; the samurai's chest was pierced by frost, the sensation of ice encroaching on his heart. It froze down to the bone, a deadening sensation, a little bit of dread that wouldn't go away...

But a charming flush was beginning to rise in Yoh's cheeks as their lips continued to brush against one another. Amidamaru brought a palm to his partner's face, felt the boy's heat suffuse itself through him and drive back sorrow. Even if this joy was fleeting and ultimately useless, all he could focus on right now was how Yoh's breath rippled across his new skin when they were this close. The cold receded as quickly as it had come, the dream's strange equilibrium restored with the warrior's passion. Amidamaru softly traced his tongue across the seam of Yoh's lips, a silent request, and the shaman acquiesced after only a moment... this time it was Amidamaru's turn to sigh, as the blissful sweetness of his master's mouth opened under his.

Out in the blackness beyond their circle of light, there was no sound. The universe had narrowed to the two of them: even the shrine and the trees were growing indistinct, like smears of colored ink in the background of a brush painting. Amidamaru outlined the fine curve of Yoh's ear as they continued to kiss, smoothing strands of silken brown back from where they had escaped the gilded hairpin. His hand slid, savoring every movement of muscle, every taunt line of the boy's neck until it vanished under the fabric of his costume's collar.

Yoh paused, feeling him there, and then very cautiously shrugged the garment a bit looser. Amidamaru exposed the shaman's shoulders with something approaching reverence, treating even the bloodstained robe as if it were delicate rice paper. The bow of the shaman boy's clavicle was a exquisite invitation, emerging from the silk exactly as Amidamaru remembered it from their living room: the samurai shifted his attentions to that vulnerable line, touching Yoh's nape to urge him to lean into the caresses. Yoh did so, just as he had in the waking world, eyes half-lidded when he rested his chin on Amidamaru's shoulder. A shiver passed through them both as the guardian's tongue pressed against the downy hollow at the base of his charge's throat and began to lick.

“H-Hey, Amidamaru - ” Yoh laid a hand on his warrior's wrist when he started to pull the boy's kimono lower again.

“Please...” The words were shamefully hoarse in Amidamaru's throat, pleading and raw with emotion he could no longer hold in check. “Please let me, my lord... I came all this way to be with you...”

“It's alright.” The shaman was blushing intensely - but he actually reached out and raised Amidamaru's chin to look him in the eye. “It's just... can't you take your clothes off too? I want to see you... the way you see me...”

The ghost fit both hands beneath Yoh and lifted him out from under the tree. They embraced for a long fragile moment: Yoh perched in the curve of his warrior's arm, the guardian hugging him tightly as he stared off into the dark sky above the tiny clearing. A few flakes of new snow began to feather down around them, quickly joined by others - they started to catch in Yoh's hair, still unmelting, shaken away as easily as flower petals.

Setting the boy on his feet, the samurai stood before the torii gate of the shrine and went to work releasing his armored cloak's knotted bindings. The lacquer plates on his limbs he also cast aside, letting them fall to the ground one by one. Then there was only the ragged-sleeved cotton of his own kosode left: a tattered black inversion of Yoh's gossamer white robe. The ribbon of his obi came apart at a touch, and then the snow was falling on his bare skin.

“You have scars!” Yoh exclaimed, looking at him with astonished and then embarrassed eyes, as though he hadn't meant to utter this revelation aloud.

“Of course I do, my lord. I can only feel fortunate to say that my swordsmanship improved with every one of them.” Amidamaru turned his head, glanced at a twisted mark that ran jaggedly down to his elbow. “Except perhaps this one here. I fell out of a tree once when I was twelve.”

That was the first time Mosuke kissed me, trying to sew that up.

“Haha. Well, I don't like the idea of 'no pain no gain' but I guess it's true. Especially for samurai, but shamans too probably.” The boy's eternal spark of good humor once again submerged under apprehension as he took a step forward, stared searchingly up at his partner. “Can I...?”

“As you wish.”

A faint sense of contact on one of the healed blade wounds near his stomach set every nerve in the spirit's body tingling ecstatically. Then he felt another, and another... in the back of his mind the desire was building to torment, but Amidamaru somehow managed to stand perfectly still and let his master proceed at his own pace. Yoh's explorations gradually became bolder, unhesitatingly moving up and down the pale-haired young man's frame, until at last it seemed that he had traced every visible mar.

“They're different from mine,” came an introspective murmur. The shaman was looking at his own arm, focused not on the recently scabbed-over scratches but at the harsher, more permanent marks beneath. “Mine are almost... sunken into me, you know? Like angry ghosts carve away a piece of me when they lash out...”

“Yours are beautiful, though, Yoh-dono!”

Fingers yet poised over his protector, the shaman shot him a painfully doubtful look, as though unable to trust in the sincerity of what he'd just heard. The samurai's feelings welled in response, brimming with everything he had always longed to admit - he knelt down and took Yoh's hands, warming them with his the way he'd never been able to do in the waking world.

"Please, listen, my lord. Every one of your scars is a emblem of courage and honor. Only a person of great kindness would reach out to the restless dead, let alone bleed for the shades of strangers. In the short time we have been together, I have seen you do both many times." Something caught in the warrior's throat, a little needle of pure pride to serve such a master. "That is why you command not only my loyalty... but my love... my unworthy soul, in all its entirety.”

Those perfect soft lips parted for him again, and did not pull away even when he undid the last ties keeping Yoh's wrap draped around his waist. Yoh's heart was fluttering like a bird in his chest as he embraced his guardian - Amidamaru wanted to calm him somehow, but his own pulse was no steadier given what their kissing was doing to him. The sensation of flesh on flesh was so real, and so long denied to his ghostly form, that he felt almost lightheaded. He had been so starved... the fact that this relief was the gift of his own desperately, secretly beloved shaman made the experience truly irresistible.

The samurai's free hand alighted on the back of Yoh's leg, slid across his thigh in a series of lingering, worshipful caresses that gradually began to travel upward. The boy let out a shuddering sigh when the touch reached the planes of his hip, a murmur that was lost in the wet mingling of their mouths; Amidamaru returned to the place, squeezed the curve of muscle a little harder, settled the boy fully into his lap before his trembling knees could give way. Sitting like this was a new configuration of torture given the proximity of certain things, but Amidamaru managed to restrain himself that much: this act could not be rushed, could not be thoughtless or cruel in any way if injury to Yoh was to be avoided. Mishandled badly enough, memories of fear might even break through to the shaman's waking consciousness.

And... although a nobler part of him decried such a poor attempt at justification... foremost this was meant as an expression of love. Self-serving as the spirit knew his actions were, he wanted to believe they ultimately flowed from his love, something so intense he sometimes thought he might ignite with it. So he had to be slow. Cautious. Lest his eagerness hurt them both...

Such thoughts allowed him to remain deliberate even while his re-embodied twenty-four-year-old anatomy begged for attention. The samurai's fingers strayed close to the cleft in the boy's downy skin, outlining it in long strokes, moving as delicately as possible to avoid startling his partner. Only when Yoh nodded faint encouragement against his neck did he dare to go further, yearning, beginning to explore that tender darkness that so haunted him in the real world.

“Ah!”

A half-sobbed breath escaped the teenager, an instant of tense reaction when Amidamaru brushed against the intimate space between his master's legs. The snowflakes eddying down around them spiraled into a sudden, symmetrical pattern, a design that blew away just as quickly as it had appeared... but Amidamaru saw that moment of beauty, and let it lift his hopes. Wouldn't the shaman's mind signal rejection if he were not wanted? Here, of all places, wouldn't their subconscious thoughts express themselves clearly enough to be seen?

The spirit guardian kissed Yoh's temple, slipped his other palm between the two of them and curled it around a more familiar source of sensation for the shaman. Slender heat eagerly answered, even as Yoh hid his crimson face in a sweep of Amidamaru's hair; he was panting, completely helpless against the need the samurai was waking in his body. Rue-tinged delight crept across Amidamaru's expression at this - tugging lightly from the front, massaging deliberately from the back, the young ghost brought Yoh rocking against him in a careful trap of desire, teaching him to associate both places with the sweet anguish of pleasure. The samurai's own youthful love play had revealed to him how well this technique worked, and gradually the treatment persuaded Yoh to relax, made him begin to arch and bloom beneath Amidamaru's fingers. When the the guardian's thumb went lower, pressed hard above a much more intimate spot hidden within, this time his charge responded with a whimper of acceptance and ecstasy.

Amidamaru shifted his grip and eased his love's thin frame down into the white so thick on the ground. Ice was still falling from above, and what had once been the forest floor now looked more like the folds of a downy futon: crisp, seamless, pristine. The chrysanthemum pin came loose from the shaman's hair as he lay back in it. The ornament fell unheeded, landing with its tines buried in a drift - a tiny flame-petaled souvenir forgotten at the foot of the shrine. The boy lay draped across the snow like a bolt of discarded silk, eyes half-lidded and gazing up at his spirit with complete, unconditional trust. The tableau was mesmerizing. Amidamaru tore his starving stare away before it blinded him, reaching behind to retrieve something from the discarded heap of his clothes.

“What... is...?”

The warrior leaned in, brought his ear close to hear the whisper. He splashed a drop from the bottle in his hands onto Yoh's wrist, let the faint numbness and warmth of the liquid diffuse through the thin skin there. Pouring the fluid brought a ribbon of rich scent and a flash of visceral memory to the samurai as well, an image of his younger self being pressed against a torn tatami floor at sunset with the light getting in his eyes.

“The ways of these things were well understood in my time,” he answered quietly to the half-spoken question. “Six hundred years ago our bond would have been a thing of elegance, and palliatives like this were sold at every store. It is to lessen the pain, because there is always a little, particularly for one so young as you.”

The clove oil, heated through by Amidamaru's palm, made a silken swath of Yoh's skin and let the embodied specter ease a fingertip within that tight heat. Yoh gasped, a wince flying across his face at this initial invasion; Amidamaru flinched too but only paused, patiently, caressing the boy's thighs until the shock had passed. Each new shudder let the samurai continue a little further, loosening the barrier, until at last he could reach the hidden point he had first discovered from the outside. Yoh's hands splayed and then dug deep into the snow, a rush of strange intensity rippling through the boy and making him writhe in its grip. A muted cry rose through the snow-spangled air, high and shaking as he rode out the wave of sensation.

“Oh, Yoh-dono.” Amidamaru bit his lip, almost unable to bear everything that noise evoked in him. “Please, let me hear you again...”

Another careful movement within convinced Yoh to acquiesce. The shaman's clear, low moans ran though Amidamaru like music, as bittersweet and compelling as the shakuhachi notes from the ceremony. Gradually his utterances climbed the scale from sensitivity to the beginnings of arousal - Amidamaru put his free palm against Yoh's stomach and began stroking upwards, long soothing motions seeking to dissipate the tension knotting his muscles. Brushes against the taunt signifier of the boy's passion also helped distract from the tight ministrations of Amidamaru's fingers: after several minutes, the pale-haired guardian slipped another digit within his master's body and twisted, gently.

He is so small, and so tight, I am always afraid of hurting him, the guardian reflected, unable to miss the way the shaman continued to quiver with each motion of his wrist. I know from past nights that what I have done thus far is not enough, certainly. Perhaps... if I...

The spirit leaned to console his master with another kiss, gazing into those expressive eyes and tangling their bangs together: moon-white mingling with chestnut-brown. Then he kept inching downward, downward, until at last he could slip his mouth entirely around Yoh. Amidamaru's tongue lapped with delicacy at first, gaining confidence when his partner twined a hand into his trailing silver ponytail - he let the changes in that grip serve as a guide, trying to find what his shaman liked best. Being too far out of touch seemed to alarm the boy, so he wrapped an arm around Yoh's leg to keep him pulled close and took him in as deeply and gently as he could.

Gradually, he began to spread his fingers apart a little where they entered his charge. With the teenager relaxed by the attentions of his tongue, stretching him was much less uncomfortable, as Amidamaru had hoped. Beginning to circle his fingertips around that sensitive inner place, synchronized with the movements of his lips, quickly overpowered the young body in his arms: Yoh went rigid for a bare second and then unwound entirely from head to toe. The samurai accepted the warmth from his master and swallowed in sips, savoring the taste without a bit of self-consciousness. A shadow did wrap around his thoughts as he did so - *once again, I have taken his innocence* - but the radiant fulfillment on Yoh's face was almost enough to erase that moral stain. Every muscle in the boy's body was at ease now; becoming one with him when he was like this would hurt very little.

The shaman's hand was unclenching from around his snow-dusted hair, sliding down the warrior's shoulder as though Yoh had forgotten it existed. Amidamaru sat up and caught that trailing elbow, nuzzling the palm before lifting his master's limp frame up against him. Yoh was so warm, so alive, so _real_ even in this domain of illusion that the samurai had to pause, embracing his partner in silence to avoid being simply overwhelmed now that this moment had come. After a long minute Yoh seemed to mistake his intention though - he boy lifted his head to protest, expression taking on a stubborn cast when he dizzily focused on the samurai.

"What about you?"

Amidamaru blinked. "Me, my lord?"

"I-It's not fair if only I get to do it," the teenager tried to explain, and then blushed very slightly when he realized what he'd said. "Well... it isn't, you know..."

Despite everything weighting him, the samurai had to smile once more: *That, the sheer goodness there, is the source of all my love and torment.*

"Then turn, and put your back against me."

With a slightly searching look, the shaman let his spirit shift him, putting him on all fours in the drifts. No tension or shivering remained, just pensive tranquility when he curled his fists around unreal snow. His head hung very slightly while he positioned himself though, and Amidamaru thought he knew the reason why: he had had the same reaction to Mosuke on their first occasion as well. Sliding to cover the boy's back with his own long form, he kissed Yoh's spine and whispered reassurance directly into his ear.

"As much as I wish to see your beautiful face, I wish more not to hurt you - they say it is easiest this way." That edge of wistfulness disappeared, and Yoh tilted his cheek willingly against Amidamaru's shoulder to listen. "There. Now, could you... touch me? Just for a moment..."

Trembling fingers stretched back, ran down his length once, and then Amidamaru brought them together in one strong, slow motion. The arm circling Yoh's hips pressed the boy up, into the moat of Amidamaru's stomach, controlling the angle they met at; this, and the oil massaged deep within Yoh, helped ease the joining. But it was still harrowingly tight at first, and the warrior had to fight to keep a touch of restraint in the midst of his ardor. Feeling his partner - his lover - opening to him like this was enough to make his very vision go dark, like he was about to lose his reason entirely; but giving in to base instinct at this point would negate all the careful progress they'd made.

"Amida... maru..."

Yoh's hand was twining through his, clutching it where it was resting on the ground.

"Yes..." The word became a groan at the end, despite his best efforts.

"You can go faster..." The samurai tried to catch Yoh's eyes, but the boy had his closed tight as he hung half-suspended in Amidamaru's grip. "I-I'm not... as fragile as you think I am..."

As if determined to prove it, a sudden action from Yoh shoved his slender frame backwards, taking in the last of the samurai all at once. Being devoured so abruptly broke the tenuous discipline Amidamaru had been keeping over himself; the dark, uncaring need lurking at the bottom of his soul woke and gained a foothold, trying to lever itself out from where he had contained it. That selfish desire, which he had kept eluding and warding away with his honest love, planted claws in him - and before he even realized it, the spirit was thrusting deep into his master, far harder and faster than he had ever intended. Yoh started to cry out again, obvious pain and salacious pleasure swarming together at the rough taking of his body... but for that brief flash, the teenager's welfare meant nothing to Amidamaru, the ghost's very being swept away by the sheer physical indulgence of the experience.

His chest was in agony, like needles of ice were pushing up beneath the surface of his skin.

No! This is not how I wanted this.

Conscience and will engaged with whatever wild impulse had taken hold of him and threw it back into its prison, but it refused to go without a struggle. Even his perspective seemed skewed at first, like he was seeing through two sets of eyes simultaneously: his own, looking with devotion and tenderness at Yoh, and another's, who beheld only a compliant boy and an outlet for its own arousal. After that image faded the warrior regained command of his senses quickly, but it was already too late. He was near his limit, squeezed impossibly close by his master's heat, and there was a scatter of blood flowering on the snow beneath them. The quivering shaman was somehow still holding his hand, seeming dazed, and the guardian kissed every part of him that he could reach in desperate apology. At last Yoh twisted his neck and met Amidamaru's seeking lips: all the doubt, desire and love melted out of the samurai, as he released inside his young lord.

They lay together in the snow afterwards. The shaman's skinny frame was pressed against the warrior's, his face concealed beneath Amidamaru's chin; both had their eyes closed while they curled tightly around each other, like the last two beings at the end of the world. The sky's descending flakes were large and fluffy and soft as feathers now, and they piled into drifts around the boy, almost as if seeking to shelter him - Amidamaru's hands, too, found themselves cradling the small of his partner's back, stroking him lightly but repetitively in a muted motion of anxiety.

I... I have... and it felt so, so good, but... oh, but even now, I still cannot bear to let him go... Not now... not ever... NEVER...

The boy was so utterly motionless that he might have been sleeping. The samurai knew better. Falling asleep in this world meant waking in the real one... and, every once in a while, Amidamaru could hear his master making the faintest of shallow whimpers muffled against his chest. Those tiny noises, Yoh reacting minutely when his body hurt him too much to keep silent, shot to the very core of the guardian's shame. Even though he had heard them so many times now... even though this was how they always finished, clinging to each other with happiness and despair too mingled to tell the conflicting emotions apart...

Each time I hear these sounds, I vow on my heart that I will NEVER trespass in his dreams ever again. The ghost's ribcage felt tight, like something inside was struggling to get out - or to get in. ...How many times more can I swear that false oath, I wonder... How many more times can I go through this fantasy, before I truly begin to wish that we would NEVER wake from it...?

One of the half-voiced sobs against his chest turned into a gasp, a spasm running up Yoh's spine when he tried to raise his head.

“Amidamaru...?”

“Y-Yes, my lord?”

"You're... holding me kind of tight..." The boy laughed a little: with the exhaustion in his voice the ghost could not tell if it was true amusement, or something else entirely. “Hey. I... I have something I want to ask you, but I'm afraid it's kinda selfish of me...”

The warrior felt the burn of shocked tears start beneath his lids. *I have done this to him, and he is the one who feels selfish. Oh, my love...* “Anything. Anything for you. Only tell me, Yoh-dono.”

“I think things are going to get rough for us soon. Maybe really bad. This Shaman Fight thing, Anna... even worse than those. But please... no matter what happens...” and here Yoh paused, waited for the warrior to open his eyes and look at him. “Don't leave me... I'll need your help... so don't leave me, like my last guardian did...”

The immediate, reactionary denial struggled to get out, but those comforting words choked and died in Amidamaru's throat before he could utter them. All he could do was stare at his master, stare past him at the newly barren landscape that rose and fell in all directions around where they were stretched. Instead of snow, that white sign of purity that had surrounded them all this time, there was something thick and gray shrouding the ground now: ashes. Deep, deep mounds of ashes, piling up as quickly as they could fall through the night. And they were cold, blindingly cold, as cold as the snow should have been from the very beginning.

"You won't, will you?"

Yoh's voice was thin, imploring, even though he was still trying to smile. His entire body was smeared with darkness, the gray clinging to his face and dirtying it pitifully. The stray spark of gold that had once been his chrysanthemum hairpin was disappearing in the thickening blizzard, covered over where it had fallen, lost without a sound - Amidamaru raised his arms, pulled Yoh to him again, unable to protect him from the horrifying sight but trying just the same.

"Never... Not even if you ordered me to... I would... never... NEVER..."

But the vision of those gray, gray ashes, falling inexorably to smother out the end of the dream, seemed to insist otherwise.

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Author's notes: Okay, seriously, I know for a fact that no man is going to be this gentle or controlled after 600 years of deprivation - not even up to the point where it got dark. That's why it's fiction.

As Amidamaru states, during the Muromachi Era (and onwards, right into the Meiji's 1800s) homosexuality was not at all taboo in Japan. In fact it was considered a rather cultivated taste, espoused by Buddhist monks, samurai, and eventually wealthy merchants who frequented pleasure quarters in search of beautiful boys. You can read all about the historical record in Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan by Gary P. Leupp. (This is where the clove oil, and the "they say it hurts less this way" info came from too.)

While this book is focused on the Tokugawa Era, it contains some relevant anecdotes from earlier history as well. The soldiers of Amidamaru's Warring States period in particular considered it admirable - almost necessary - to love one's comrades and superiors (in both senses of the word 'love') due to their short, loyal lives on the battlefield. Boys as young as 12 were perfectly fair game, since that was the age they were thought old enough to fight for their lord. I imagine the fact that male/male ardor was a constant and open theme during the period Amidamaru actually lived contributes to the dire conflict he experiences over his desire for his master as a ghost: during his own lifetime it would have been a beautiful and honorable emotion, idealized and practiced by his peers, but finding it abhorred in modern times would be a terrible shock.
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